Farmer Chris Craven tends his flock at Whitethorn Farm near Kexby (From York Press)

Farmer Chris Craven tends his flock at Whitethorn Farm near Kexby

10:12am Monday 1st March 2010 in

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EARLY morning sunlight streams into the sheepfold at Whitethorn Farm as Chris Craven makes his way across freshly-scattered straw to help one of his ewes.

She normally has no trouble giving birth but her latest offspring is proving a bit tricky. So Chris rolls up his sleeve and guides his Texel-cross to the floor. She puts up little resistance and looks glad of a helping hand. It’s over in seconds and through clouds of rising vapour a bleary-eyed lamb takes a tentative first peek at her new world.

For the next couple of weeks she will stay with her mum in the warmth of the barn before joining the rest of the flock in nearby fields.

Looking at his watch, Chris realises that it’s time to feed the lambs who are already braving the elements. His Mazda pick-up makes light work of the icy back lanes where snowdrops line the route and the distant Wolds still have a dusting after the recent cold-snap.

As he pulls up Chris is met by a cacophony of bleating. His sheep must have a built-in timepiece because they are already at the fence, waiting expectantly for their breakfast.

Undeniably cute, the young lambs in the field are a welcome sight; a sign that the miserable depths of winter are at last becoming a memory; not one to relish maybe, but a memory all the same. The days are lighter, our spirits lifted and better days are just around the corner.

But try telling that to Chris, who has been working 18-hour days since the turn of the year. He can’t remember the last time he had a full night’s sleep and he won’t get another one before April.

His farm at Kexby, just east of York, has 900 Suffolk-cross and Texel-cross ewes; most are about to give birth. For Chris, lambing time is not about waxing lyrical; it’s bloody hard work.

“Normally I give it until 2am,”he says. “If nothing’s happening by then it’s probably safe to turn in for a couple of hours. Sheep in the open don’t lamb at the dead of night because of predators and that instinct still kicks in when they are indoors.”

Chris is 39 and has been farming with his father since he was a lad. He lambs early because selling before the springtime glut arrives means there is a shortfall, and he will get a better price.

Better still, the exchange rate is favourable at the moment and values are quite strong. So far, Chris has raised nearly 1,000 lambs and he expects them to fetch somewhere between £70 and £100 each.

He says: “Lambs spend the first two days in individual pens with their mother just while they get on their feet and get used to suckling. They get a bit of size and a bit of strength and both become used to the smell of each other, which is important before we mix them with the rest of the sheep.”

Today it’s chilly but dry; lambs cope surprisingly well in cold weather but they don’t like it wet, and this year’s snow has caused Chris a few headaches.

“We turn them back out to the fields in groups of 80 to 90 ewes. When we do, it is basically down to the weather. If it’s okay they can go out at a week old, but if it tips it with snow, like it did when we started lambing in December, they can be nearly three weeks old before they go out.”

Trouble is grass doesn’t grow at this time of year, so Chris has to grow specialist crops such as stubble turnips and grazing rye to keep his flock fed.

“Lambing in the winter is messing with nature a little bit because the sheep’s natural cycle – ready for the tup (ram) to mate – is in October or November and that corresponds to five months later with spring weather and spring grass growth.

“So when I’m putting my tups in at the height of summer they are a bit ‘this isn’t right’, so you have to sort of cajole them. But usually the financial reward is that you get more for your lamb.”

Back at the farm he walks along the pens to check all is well. He points to a couple of lambs who were born in the early hours and explains that their mother gave birth to three. Ewes struggle to bring up more than two, so he’s taken one away.

But he needs to find it a surrogate mother ... and soon. In the corner, another sheep is about to give birth and Chris prays she will have only one. She does; his prayers are answered.

“We use a technique called wet-mothering. I’ll smother this one in the juices of her own lamb so it will smell the same. We have to do this because, with the best will in the world, if I don’t intervene, one out of a litter of three will perish.”

It’s the toughest time of the year for Chris with endless back-breaking hours devoted to the welfare of his new-born flock. And when he’s not worrying about them, there’s always the weather.

But it’s a way of life and one he would never swap.

“Who else would get up in the middle of the night four months of the year? Hopefully I’ll turn a profit, but it’s a lifestyle not so much a job. If I went and worked for somebody on an hourly rate I’d be a lot better off, but farming is in my blood.”

So tonight as you make your way to bed, spare a thought for Chris who will again be up until the frosty small hours with his sleeves rolled up, as he lends a helping hand to one of his ewes and welcomes another bleary-eyed lamb into their brave new world.

Hear excerpts from Matt’s interview with Farmer Chris Craven